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Allison Pregler is afemale reviewer who takes on Z-grade movies, usually in the horror or martial arts genre. Basically, she does reviews like The Cinema Snob only in a sophomoric manner. She began reviewing in late 2009. She is the wife of Phelan Porteus, aka Phelous, and the two collaborate on each other's videos.
Obscurus Lupa Presents: Z-movies movies from the early 70's to late 90's. A "Z" movie for Lupa is something that doesn't have the capability or the budget to do something incredible. Not all the movies are bad. Some are terrible.
Commercial Dubs: Lupa riffs on stupid commercials from the 90's in her inimitable style.
Manic Episodes: Focuses on individual episodes from TV shows, usually of the Big Lipped Alligator variety. As with her movie reviews, Lupa points out inherent issues with the writing, acting and production.
Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: "Well, folks, it's been an amazing journey, this Rothrock-a-thon. We've taken on some poor wire work, some badly-edited imports, and whatever the hell China O'Brian was."
Artistic License Biology: She criticises Hard to Kill for having Storm frequently doing things that someone who has been in a coma for nearly a decade should not be able to do. "Medical research, Hard to Kill haz it!"
As You Know: Lupa comments on how two characters do this in Witchery.
Lupa: Thank goodness they stated the exposition to each other. It was seamlessly awkward.
Lupa: Uh oh here comes Alyssa- the big bad, the head honcho, the big kahuna, the leader of the pure bloods, the terrifying main villain, the ultimate- oh I guess she's dead.
Awesome McCoolname: She admits to having no other reason for the name other than she liked it.
Bad Cop, Incompetent Cop: In Zombie Nation the antagonist is a serial killer cop, his partner is too stupid to notice.
Lupa:(imitating partner) So Joe, what happened to that lady you took in there and where did that duffel bag come from?
Beauty Equals Goodness: "Not McDreamy! But...he's so charming and British! Accents make everything sexy, he can't be the killer! Perhaps it was some ugly person!"
All Just a Dream endings, which have appeared in numerous films that she has reviewed and which get a different angry reaction each time. She has pointed out that what bothers her the most is how these endings often do not make sense, as they often contradict previous scenes which imply that the movie is taking place in reality. She found this to be a major source of annoyance in 13 seconds, especially since the film included scenes not featuring the character whose dream it supposedly was.
Beware the Nice Ones: She is pretty shocked during Lady Dragon when the little boy kills a bad guy with one kick.
With Lupa herself, she's one of the nicer people on the site, but stalk her, not have fun or refuseto bea lady and she'll get scary. And like the apparent majority of people, she thinks making the Critic suffer is loads of fun.
Big No: Used in her review of "Razor Sharpe". It was totally Justified.
When the Little Miss Gamer lookalike gets wasted in Blood Red Moon.
Lupa: You were the best of us! {{[[[Military Salute]] salute!}}]
While sitting through Mindwarp, something about the desert landscape reminds her something... [cue shot from Gerry] Lupa lets out a scream.
When Sleepy Hollow High is revealed to be just a dream.
When she realizes there's an eighth Howling movie.
Shouted this when Toady, the chainsaw-wielding Frog Man, was defeated by Roddy Piper. Realizing he's supposed to be the villain, Lupa half-heartedly follows it up with, "yeeeeesss."
Big Yes: YES! YES!! FROOOOOOOG BAAAAAAANNNNND!:D (Return to Frogtown)
Billing Displacement: Her review of "X-treme Fighter" observes that despite Cynthia Rothrock being one of the main stars on the cover, she is only in the film for five minutes.
The opening of "Hard to Kill" has cameos by several of her friends and colleagues from the TGWTG forums, including Diamanda Hagan, Audible Underwear of Music Video Theater 3000, Apollo Z. Hack, and Nash of What the Fuck Is Wrong With You?
Her (at the time) boyfriend Jeremiah made several cameos in her videos, either as himself or other characters.
The Cinema Snob has a cameo at the end of Shark Attack 3, confused why his theme song was used over the end credits. He also provides the narration for the trailer of Pirahnasaur
In her review of the third and fourth Phantasm films, Lupa is confronted by
Todd, along with Paw Dugan and The Nostalgia Chick's friends Elisa (who along with Paw even pops up into frame to scream "CAMEO!") and Nella appear in her crossover with the Chick.
Phelous (as Shredder) sings "I'll Be Home For Christmas" in its entirety. He carries a tune better than the entire TMNT Chistmas special.
Canada, Eh?: While reviewing Teen Sorcery after hearing Michael's pronunciation of "sorry". Lupa, dressed in winter wear, says "I'm definitely not Canadian."
Canis Latinicus: In proper Latin, her name should be "Lupa Obscura".
Reviewed the unintentionally horrifying children's movie Gooby with Iron Liz, with Iron Liz later roping her into reviewing She Creature with her as payback.
Appears as a tokusatsu version of herself in Apollo Z Hack 's Reviewaverse Saga, complete with power-enhancing wrist device.
Reviewed Honor and Glory with The Nostalgia Chick as she felt the need to share Cynthia Rothrock with other people.
Curse Cut Short: Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation leads to several cases of Lupa going "FUUUUUU --"
Dawson Casting: In China O'Brien when Dakota's mother says he is too young to be in the bar, Lupa responds, "So they don't allow anyone under the age of thirty?"
Dude Magnet: At the very least, she has Todd in the Shadows and Nash's little animated stickman pining after her. Lampshaded in her cameos in the Linkara/Phelous crossover review of The AirZone Solution?, after one tries to get her to recreate a bedroom scene.
Dyeing for Your Art: Lupa is a natural blonde, but has had red hair for the majority of her series. When she released her commentary for Undefeatable, her first video review, she explained that she has been changing her hair color regularly for most of her life, and that her first few videos (Including Undefeatable) caught her at a rare moment when she had returned to her natural color.
She says that the woman in Zombie Nation who inexplicably delivers a Cluster F-Bomb because Joe Singer refuses to sell her a sofa is her favorite character in the film.
She also remarks the father figure in Vampire Assassin is the best actor, and is annoyed he only has two scenes. (And with good reason: He's Dolemite!!)
In the same movie she says the random guy in the police line up who helps the hero out is a better protagonist and fighter than the lead and wishes he was the hero instead.
In The Howling VII she's far, far more enamored with one of the townsfolk named Pappy than she is with any of the main characters.
Everyone Is Related: Fresh off the revaluation that the Police Chief is the father of Undefeatable's male leads (at least according to Godfrey Ho's Chinese dub), Ed Glaser pops up to reveal that he's Lupa's long-lost brother.
Undefeatable has one. What bugs Lupa is that it happens when the group of characters are at the grave of the heroine's dead sister.
Shark Attack 3 had a standard laughing ending, prompting Lupa to start playing "Believe It Or Not" over the credits.
Eyepatch of Power: Worn while reviewing Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD. When in Rome...
Face Palm: Lou Ferrigno stumbling around sleepily, lying down, and then being held up by a gun-toting frog. Who goes RIBBIT. (cut to Lupa burying her face in her hands)
Fan Disservice: Her opinion on a mud wrestling scene in Lady Dragon "I'm glad you picked the most unattractive people for that."
Seems to have this reaction to most nudity and sex in the movies she reviews, actually.
Fauxshadow: Points out in The Howling reboot once lines have been revealed as fauxshadowing, there needs to be another reason why the characters would have said them.
Another issue she has with Razor Sharpe, particularly as it was made to show off the star's fighting abilities. It gets to the point where Lupa declares she can choreograph a better fight scene, we then cut to her and her friends fighting with toy guns set to Ghost Love Score.
She also points out in Undefeatable that several kicks and punches obviously don't make contact.
During the poorly staged fights in Blood Red Moon she takes to singing "fail" to the tune of eine kleine nachtmusik.
Film Felons: She was thoroughly unimpressed by the application of this trope in Razor Sharpe, pointing out that Sharpe should really have been more suspicious of the fact that the "film" he was in lacked a script, rehearsals and really almost everything you need to make a film.
Flat What: Does one in the "Fatal Deviation" review, when confronted with a naked, cowboy-hat wearing man, taking a bath outside. She has no comprehension of who he is or why he is in the movie.
Remarks that Teen Sorcery is an attempt to ride on the coat-tails of The Craft, but instead of tackling issues like corruption and abuse of power, they decided to make it kid friendly.
Points out that Vampire Assassin is so much of a Blade rip-off even the poster is a knock off of the one for Blade 2.
Girly Run: "If your villain runs like a sissy, you probably need a casting change."
Good Times Montage: Lupa shares some girl bonding time with Cythia Rothrock — sort of. Actually, she spends the montage chatting and prancing around with a bunch of Rothrock DVDs. (A Seagal film somehow slips into the pile, but Lupa throws it away.)
Happily Married: Not "officially", but she and Phelan love each other very much, and they live together as a romantic couple.
Hard Work Montage: Upon hearing China O Brien will be running for sheriff Lupa declares "You know what that means. A hardcore campaigning montage!"
Heh, Heh, You Said "X": The American Ninja sequels, starting with #2! "Heh, number two."
Heroic BSOD: During the American Ninja reviews, Lupa makes a running gag of dubbing humerous music over the fight scenes. American Ninja 4 however is so bad that the last fight scene is accompanied by, rather than music, Lupa sobbing.
Hypocritical Humour: She pokes fun of Zombie Nation for using the headshots of the actresses during a news segment. Immediately afterwards, her own headshot appears on screen.
Laughing at Kate Hodge getting jilted over the phone and swigging wine. "What a loser!" Lupa then proceeds to swig wine and frown at her phone while "The Lonely Man" plays.
Oan snidely asks if she has Buffy memorized down to the last detail. Lupa nonchalantly replies that she saw "a bit of it."
Radu scoffs at Super Christian for still living with his mother, only to be shouted at by his own "mommy" (also the show's producer).
He then complains about the sequel, which shows the first Super Christianplaying on a film projector. "They're riffing they're own movie? Who the hell does that?" (cut to Radu watching Subspecies)
I Know Karate: The number of people in Undefeatable that turn out to know martial arts leads Lupa to declare she would not be surprised if it turned out a kid in a grocery store scene turned out to know karate too.
I Remember It Like It Was Yesterday: She begins her tenth episode saying it feels like only four months ago when she started. This is followed by a montage of her previous reviews. Subverted when Apollo Z Hack phones to point out ten episodes is not a big achievement, particularly when The Nostalgia Critic did a hundred episodes.
Ice Cream Koan: She was extremely confused by the bizarre ramblings about "fate and destiny" delivered by the villain of Vampire Assassin.
Played straight in Witchery much to her annoyance.
Averted in Angel of Fury but done in such a narmtastic way she giggles nonstop.
Inferred Holocaust: Vampegeddon has its heroine, Liz, get possessed by the ghost of the (male) vampire hunter Longshank. At the end of the film, she's still being possessed, and it's implied it's a permanent effect.
She mocks the number of times this is used in Lady Dragon.
She also does this herself in her review of Undefeatable.
Kaleidoscope Hair: The commentary for Undefeatable explained that she had been changing her hair color regularly for most of her life, and that her first few videos (including Undefeatable) caught her at a rare moment when she had returned to her natural color.
Lupa's name is an aversion, as she explained that her name does not mean she only does obscure movies, it is Latin for "Dark She-Wolf" (Explanation here. Basically, her name should've been obscura lupa). It is rather unfortunate, though, that lupa was also Latin slang for "prostitute".
She sarcastically goes "subtle movie" during her Teen Sorcery review when we find out the love interest's surname is Charming.
Meganekko: Lupa sports glasses in her Hell Comes to Frogtown video. Muy bien.
Metaphorgotten: Use when describing the plot of The Black Ninja: "The plot goes like so: it's Daredevil, but he isn't blind, and doesn't have superpowers. Yep. That's it."
In another non-romantic moment, Lupa the Nostalgia Chick are friendly after watching Hope And Glory together, until Todd appears and Lupa's stinging rejection of him causes the Chick to attack her.
Name McAdjective: Refers to characters in Witchery as Whorey McArchitect and Captain McMustardstain.
She calls one of the astronauts from Alien Apocalypse Whiny McWhinypants
Fatal Deviation's hero, Jimmy Bennett (played by James Bennett), might have benefited from a more creative name. Like "Paddy McLightning", or 'Fisticuffs McHoulahan".
Nightmare Fuel: Lupa and Iron Liz's in-universe reaction to the "children's" movie Gooby.
Non Actor Vehicle: Gymkata is such a film which prompts Lupa to state, "Just because you're an athlete doesn't mean you're an actor."
She's reviewed a slew of these, including City Dragon, Razor Sharpe and Vampire Assassin. Cynthia Rothrock started out this way too, but has at least made a career out of it.
Not Even Bothering with the Accent: "Oh ho Richard Norton, we meet again. You're not going to try to pull off an American accent? Not even just a little? You're just the random Australian guy again?"
Not Making This Up Disclaimer: She stresses that yes, a setting that is clearly a warehouse is meant to be a police station in Zombie Nation.
Yes, the father from Bloody Mary Killer is infamous fim producer Godfrey Ho.
Off-the-Shelf FX: Much to Lupa's disbelief, a Game Cube is used as a prop in a science lab in X-treme Fighter. Even worse, the virtual reality helmet is a bicycle helmet with Christmas lights on it. This prompts her to apologize to Stakes for making fun of their CGI.
Also, in Hercules in New YorkFilm Brain points out the crystal ball is "the clearest fish bowl the props crew could find".
Obviously Evil:The corporate execs in Shark Attack 3 "Buh, ha ha, it's great being evil money grabbing douchebags!"
Jokes about this with one character from Angel of Fury.
Lady Dragon 2's final fight montage. Partly used to commemorate Rothrock's and Norton's last hurrah, but mostly to rejoice in the Plucky Comic Relief getting beat up.
Plays again when Ed Glaser reveals he's Lupa's brother. What follows are over-the-top Reaction Shots of Lupa (including one which looks like a oh face).
Only One Name: Remarks that Dakota from China O Brien has only one name- like Cher or Madonna.
Our Vampires Are Different: Vampire Assassin presents vampires who shoot lightning when they are staked.
"Oh yeah, I forgot about the part of vampire mythology where they always keep clubs from the 1980s in the basement."
Lupa is underwhelmed that in Lady Dragon 2 all Cynthia Rothrock has to do is put on an unconvincing wig for the people who assaulted her earlier in the film not to recognize her.
Pet Peeve Trope: She's reviewed three movies so far that ended as All Just a Dream. Every one prompted am in-universe rant about this.
Physics Goof: A Running Gag in the China O'Brien review is "pretty sure it doesn't work like that".
Pieta Plagiarism: Occurs in the aforementioned 'epic battle' her and her friends have during Razor Sharpe
Power Trio: Jokes about this in 13 seconds with their fake band- when a CD cover of them appear she captions it with "badboy, sensitive and misunderstood".
Almost every time slow-motion is used in a film, she begins to speak in slow motion as well.
She adds the montage song from Lady Dragon whenever there is, well, a montage. She does not seem very fond of it ("I got the courage to FAH-EEET!").
"...Da (villain)!" *ominous music sting* *extreme zoom-in* (Misaimed on the side of her mouth.)
"There won't be another ____ for months."
As noted, the *extreme zoom-in* with a blaring music sting is also used specifically for bad ie: obvious plot twists; two in succession in her latest review - a crossover with The Cinema Snob prompted him to Lampshade Hanging appropriately -
Patriotic montage songs for each of the American Ninja movies. Except 4. "You don't get one."
Sarcasm Failure: After the hero of Gymkata accidentally kicks a random pedestrian in the face while swinging from a bar, she giggles and says "I have no words."
Sarcasm Mode: "And we all know bad quality makes reading subtitles a breeze!" in the Bloody Mary Killer review.
She remarks Pterodactyl is as stupid as someone bitching about the continuity in a film then getting the facts wrong themselves. She then looks away sheepishly.
During the opening moments of Razor Sharpe Lupa apologizes, thinking she put in one of her old theatre tapes by accident.
In her intro to her review of one of the later Cynthia Rothrock movies she showed a clip of her review of Lady Dragon and then remarks that it needed work.
Sexophone: Pointed out in her Hard To Kill review: "CUE SEXY SAXOPHONE MUSIC". Later it is played again, and Lupa questions why it is being used there - when the main character is being told that a nurse has been killed.
So Bad It's Good: Generally the films she reviews are Guilty Pleasures. She feels the same about Torchwood, where she says it's more bad than good, but that's why she likes it. She's also a fan of Twilight for similar reasons.
So Happy Together: The main character of Lady Dragon on her wedding day.
Something Completely Different: She did a series of three Manic Episode videos as a recap of the series She Wolf of London, with her going into details of what she liked and did not like about the series as a whole. After that she did a video detailing the Top 10 moments of Tales of the Gold Monkey.
Soundtrack Dissonance: She is really good at putting rather hilarious soundtracks to scenes in some of the movies she reviews.
For Vampire Assassin, she played the "Sad Walking Away Music" from the old Incredible Hulk show when "Vampire Hulk" gets staked.
For Razor Sharpe she dubs the Pina Colada song over the final fight sequence
Although she is puzzled during Zombie nation in scenes of the zombies mutilating people the soundtrack is upbeat, europop music.
She remarks the underwater fight scene in Lady Dragon appears to be set to elevator music, and in the sequel she states maybe they should not have used synthesizer trumpets during a fight scene.
In The Fly II, Martinfly breaking into a company and killing people in gross ways is accompanied by R. Kelly's "I Believe I Can Fly".
Her Radu Reviews show uses I'm walking on sunshine as theme music, set to all the gory deaths (including by sunlight) the vampire Radu suffered in his movie series.
Special Effects Evolution: Lupa's death by car bomb. The 'explosion' varies in cheesiness between each video.
In Shark Attack 3: Megalodon the footage of the shark attacking people is so bad it prompts her to laugh out loud, particularly as they keep recycling the same shot.
The puppet work in Pterodactyl, to the point she inserts the footage into the title sequence of Dinosaurs
In Vampire Assassin she quips, "You know things are great when you open on a photostill."
More like Prop Failure, but in Razor Sharpe, she points out that the hero's girlfriend's gravestone moves when he puts his hand on it. And also that it has someone else's name on it.
Spoof Aesop: "Personally, I'm of the mindset that anyone who claims to able to smell your lack of underwear should be avoided at all costs, serial killer or no."
Radu Reviews a movie about traffic safety. "These animations and musical numbers help me remember these easy steps! Now I, too, can murder people on the highway!"
She finds it a little creepy that Cynthia Rothrock's character in Angel of Fury befriending a girl named Sarah. She cut to a picture of Chris Hansen saying "Ok boys I'm going in." Complete with a caption saying Paedo Hunt.
Stalking Is Love: Blood Red Moon being a Twilight knock-off features this.
In Pterodactyl, Lupa replaces the previous episode's song with a "crappy montage" set to I'll Tumble 4 Ya.
Her Lady Dragon 2 review climaxes with a stylistically sucky montage of her goofing around with her Cynthia Rothrock movie collection set to Wake me up before you go go
She finishes her Teen Sorcery review with some bad dancing set to the song played at the big dance at the end of the film.
Suspiciously Specific Denial: "So, like, I'm totally not doing anything illegal, 'specially if I found a puppy one time, and maybe things got out of hand, and I had this whole lawsuit going on, but, I mean, nothing really happened, and I paid for the cab, so like, what's the problem?"
Take That: On Peterodactyl she says it stars Coolio "So you know the star power is abundant in this one."
She remarks Tommy Wiseau is "Like the French Borat if he didn't realise he was the French Borat."
On hearing that the wooden child character in Witchery's name is Tommy she observes that at last they knew Tommy Wiseau's origins.
As Dawn begins her first day of school in Teen Sorcery Lupa gives a narration mocking Twilight. "It's not easy being pretty and liked by everyone."
Radu's critique of Jurassic Park. "It was a movie directed by Steven Springsteen, who has a band I think. It was adapted from the book Great Expectations, which was written a shit-load of a long time ago. Together with the help of Colonel Sanders, Merlin, The Fly, some children, and some boobs must fight the dinosaurs, but in the end the dinosaurs win out. It was pretty cool. ...This was followed by one sequel and one piece of horseshit. End report."
Tempting Fate: Lupa was so enthused about the frog band in Return to Frog Town that the universe snapped back at her with the frog lounge singers.
In the Kickassia commentary she did with Linkara, Phelous, and Nash, she mentioned her desire to dub fart noises into Spoony's Insano transformation sequence.
Too Happy to Live: Has a meter running in Angel of Fury to measure the amount of badness that will happen to the main character in proportion to how happy they are at the moment.
Totally Radical: She jokes that X-treme Fighter was named this due to a mistaken belief it was 1994, not 2004.
"He's the hippest happenin' hotcat, yo! [beat] That's...uh...th-that's what they say nowadays, right? (Rage and Honor)
Lupa does one in preparation for her Lady Dragon 2 review, set to the music from the first Lady Dragon. We see her exercise her thumb via a DVD remote, box a guy with a sign reading "RICHARD NORTON" taped to his chest, and bench-press her cat.
Troperiffic: Being a show about critical deconstruction of B-movies, this is pretty much unavoidable.
Unfortunate Implications: During Alien Apocalypse she says "there's nothing wrong with the only black character in the film being a slave."
She later observes that Gymkata is like regular karate with more unnecessary flips and wooshing sounds.
The Untwist: Lupa really hates how Howling IV attempts to present the story as a mystery, despite the fact that this is the fourth movie in the series and the audience is well aware this is a werewolf movie.
Unwanted Harem: She is not remotely happy about being a Dude Magnet. Justified since Todd tends to get creepy or awkward fast, as do almost every other guy who goes after her, her dynamic with the Critic is the usual fem!dommy sexual tension he has with every woman, and she's in a committed relationship.
What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?: In keeping with the site-wide Running Gag, she tends to play "Ghost Love Score" whenever she deems it necessary, such as a fight scene in Vampire Assassin where a secondary character who never even gets a name punches out a vampire while dragging the unconscious protagonist with the other hand.
Lupa did a dramatic, 9-minute long reading of the description of a limited edition pen designed by Sylvester Stallone from the manufacturer's website ... just see for yourself here.
Wire Fu: After a lackluster example in Xtreme Fighter she comments "just because you have wirework available doesn't mean you should use it."
Lupa is baffled during Hard to Kill when the villain's henchmen wait until Storm comes out of a seven year coma before trying to kill him again, instead of finishing him off when he was vulnerable.
Likewise in Magic Island, she questions why Blackbeard didn't just kill Jack and Lily after getting the treasure map from them.
WTH Costuming Department: In-universe, upon seeing one of Cynthia Rothrock's outfits in Lady Dragon 2 Lupa asks if she raided Madonna's wardrobe.
She remarks that despite the film being called Pterodactyl, the creatures featured are in fact pteranodons, which are not dinosaurs.
The word 'karma' gets used a lot in Lady Dragon in a way that does not mean what the film-makers seem to think.
The villain in Vampire Assassin keeps muttering about "fate or destiny" as if they were not synonyms.
Younger Than They Look: In her Undefeatable commentary, she says that she looks about 30 in it, but was actually 19 at the time of the video, and is 21 at the time of the commentary.